A complete transcript of a December 1991 WBAI radio interview with Nikki Craft, recorded approximately twenty-four hours after the American Civil Liberties Union’s Bill of Rights Day event in San Francisco. Craft describes the Always Causing Legal Unrest counter-acronym, the Pushing Buttons project, the November 28 cease-and-desist letter from Dorothy Ehrlich, the December 15 leafleting action, attempts to stop the women from distributing their leaflet, the physical attack, and the destruction of the large framed political artwork.

The interview contains Craft’s early explanation of the buttons as satirical conceptual art and an experiment in free speech. The project put feminist words into the public identity of the other ACLU, forcing the institution to confront what it felt like to have another speaker define its position. The interview also records an extended dispute over whether attention should center on the provocative button language or on the battery, vandalism, suppression of leafleting, and lack of immediate press coverage.

Media Coverage and Suppression Context

During the interview, Craft asks why the WBAI interviewer was the only journalist to speak with her within twenty-four hours of the action. Her contemporaneous assault notes record that the San Francisco Chronicle did not follow up after receiving her press release and that Pacifica News Department director Don Rush knew about the assault within forty-eight hours but did not produce the anticipated report. Craft understood the pattern as censorship through noncoverage, reframing, and silence.

According to Craft, the station’s online transcript was removed quickly. A historical copy survived on the No Status Quo / Always Causing Legal Unrest website. This archival edition reproduces the full transcript so that the record does not depend on a single external webpage.

Editorial and Preservation Note

The transcript is reproduced word for word from the surviving web-transcript capture. It has been reflowed into readable pages and speaker labels have been formatted, but the wording has not been abridged or rewritten. Original capitalization, laughter, bleep indicators, parenthetical notes, historical ordering information, and transcription irregularities are retained. The original one-page PDF web capture is preserved with the Big 3 package.

Historical Source Link

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/Porn/WBAI.html

Archival Significance

The interview is a near-contemporaneous primary source for the December 15, 1991 action and for the political theory of Always Causing Legal Unrest. It preserves Craft’s account before later dismissal of the charges, later institutional responses, and decades of retrospective interpretation. It also documents media framing in real time: the interviewer repeatedly questions the buttons’ content while Craft insists that the central issue is the physical suppression of peaceful feminist speech.

The transcript is foundational to understanding Pushing Buttons. It shows that the slogans were not isolated jokes or generalized hostility. They were part of a deliberate experiment designed to reverse the direction of protected speech and make institutions accustomed to defending speech about women experience having controversial words placed into their own public identity.

Content Note

Contains discussion of pornography, rape, child sexual abuse, violence against women, armed self-defense, retaliation against abusers, and confrontational political slogans. The interview also describes an alleged physical assault, damage to artwork, minor cuts from broken glass, and press suppression. Historical profanity and bleeped language are retained.

Related Records

ACLU-00, Always Causing Legal Unrest: Origins, Overview, and Document Guide; ACLU-01, the large framed “We’d Rather Be Destroying Pornography” artwork; ACLU-02, Pushing Buttons catalogs; ACLU-03, the “Happy Bill of Rights Day” leaflet and press statement; ACLU-04, SFPD Incident Report No. 911701682; ACLU-04a, the unsent letter to Dorothy Ehrlich; the original signed cease-and-desist letter; Nikki Craft’s contemporaneous assault notes; and later correspondence concerning the dismissal of the case.

Priority Keywords / Subject Tags

Nikki Craft, WBAI Radio, Pacifica Radio, Always Causing Legal Unrest, Pushing Buttons, American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Northern California, Dorothy Ehrlich, Bill of Rights Day, December 15 1991, feminist political art, political buttons, conceptual art, free speech satire, feminist direct action, leafleting, Matthew Coles, Marcia Gallo, battery, vandalism, destroyed artwork, media censorship, press suppression, media silence, pornography criticism, Andrea Dworkin, Thelma and Louise, feminist self-defense, radical feminism, feminist archives, radio interview transcript

Complete Copyable Description

Title: WBAI Radio Interview with Nikki Craft: Always Causing Legal Unrest, Pushing Buttons, and the Bill of Rights Day Action. Creator: WBAI Radio and Nikki Craft. Date: December 1991, approximately twenty-four hours after the December 15, 1991 action. This complete transcript records Nikki Craft’s account of the Always Causing Legal Unrest counter-acronym, Pushing Buttons, the ACLU cease-and-desist letter, the women’s leafleting at the ACLU Bill of Rights Day event, the effort to stop them, the physical attack, and the destruction of the large framed political artwork. Craft explains the buttons as satirical conceptual art and a free-speech experiment that placed feminist words into the public identity of the other ACLU, mirroring the institution’s role in enabling pornographers and other men to speak about women and women’s sexuality. The interview also documents a struggle over media framing: the interviewer repeatedly questions the provocative slogans while Craft returns to battery, vandalism, suppression of peaceful leafleting, and the absence of immediate press coverage. According to Craft, the station’s online transcript was removed quickly; a historical copy survived on the No Status Quo website. This edition reproduces the transcript word for word, preserves the original one-page web capture, and provides a stable archival record. Series: Nikki Craft Archival Project - Always Causing Legal Unrest. Family: ACLU-03a.

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews